| Title | Research Demonstrates a Molecular Dance that Keeps Your Heart Beating | |
| Date | Saturday October 17 2020, @09:51PM | |
| Author | Fnord666 | |
| Topic | ||
| from the heart-strings dept. | ||
Research demonstrates a molecular dance that keeps your heart beating:
Filament-like proteins in heart muscle cells have to be exactly the same length so that they can coordinate perfectly to make the heart beat.
Another protein decides when the filament is the right size and puts a wee little cap on it. But, if that protein makes a mistake and puts the cap on too early, another protein, leiomodin, comes along and knocks the cap out of the way.
This little dance at the molecular scale might sound insignificant, but it plays a critical role in the development of healthy heart and other muscles. Reporting in the journal, Plos Biology, a WSU research team has proven for the first time how the mechanism works.
[...] "It's beautifully designed," said Kostyukova, whose research is focused on understanding protein structures.
And, tightly regulated.
[...] "The probability of being able to show this mechanism was not high, but the impact of the discovery is," said Tolkatchev, an expert in nuclear magnetic resonance. "This was a very important problem to study and could have a significant impact in the field of muscle mechanics."
Journal Reference:
Dmitri Tolkatchev, Garry E. Smith Jr., Lauren E. Schultz, et al. Leiomodin creates a leaky cap at the pointed end of actin-thin filaments, PLOS Biology (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3000848)
| Links |
printed from SoylentNews, Research Demonstrates a Molecular Dance that Keeps Your Heart Beating on 2024-04-18 17:55:29